Electric Violins Fender FV3 vs NS Design WAV4

Electric Violins Fender FV3 vs NS Design WAV4

Both of these Electric Violins retail at closer to five hundred dollars than a thousand, which make them both great bargains compared to anything but the really cheap curlicue plastic things one sees for sale online which I’ve heard aren’t really worth the decent strings and bow it would take to really play them. I was shopping for an Electric Violin and liked the glossy photo images of the Fender FV3 but was almost worried about its so low price point when compared to the other Brands out there, notably NS Design Electric Violins which apparently thought that it would take closer to 3 thousand dollars to build an acceptable Electric Violin. But then there came the advent of the NS Design WAV4, also manufactured in China along with the Fender FV3, and priced to take on the Fender FV3 in an even up war where perceived quality would decide the outcome of the sales battle.

Of course, NS Design is a very reputable firm, relatively ancient in the somewhat new field of Electric Violins. Fender, on the other hand, perhaps the most glorious of the electric guitar makers, has had very little presence in the Electric Violin Market, accept for its kind of ugly FV1 which didn’t exactly take the Violin World by storm. So I decided to start out by ordering the NS Design WAV4. My first impressions of the NS Design WAV4 have been covered in previous Reviews. But the highlights of those reviews are… what!? No bow! Granted, a new bow, without a good week of being rosined up… seasoned… will simply make it seem that a new violin that comes with it sounds horrible, and so NS Design decided to dodge that bullet simply by not offering a bow. Oh, and the Shoulder Rest – I broke it by trying to make it comfortable… the flexible “Custom” Shoulder Rest I had read about needs to be special ordered, while the stiff hard as a rock shoulder rest is what you get standard with your order. The WAV4 is heavier than a regular violin, which makes it harder to keep in place and to control, and so I fashioned a ‘Dog Collar’ (patent pending) for it, to retain it close to one’s neck and throat. That was a great idea… I have subsequently made Dog Collars for even my real violins… one no longer even needs to use the chin rests… the violins stay right where they need to be to be played perfectly well. The Electric Sound of the NS Design WAV4 took a bit of dialing in. Really, Electric Violins can sound absolutely hideous if you just plug them into something and begin to play. What I found that works best, with the equipment I had on hand, was an Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor which I set on its Non-Linear Chorus setting, cranked up to where it only just begins to get thick and full of echo and then back it off a notch (I think that what the Non Linear Chorus does in effect is take the annoying High Frequency components on the low strings and blends them out while mixing in non-harmonic components from the primary fundamental note so that the final sound is fuller and smoother, while still being a recognizable single note. Using the regular chorus settings brings out what hints at distinct harmonically related notes and chord sounds which could actually conflict with the music one is playing). From Effects Processor I go into a Peavey 6 Mixer – one of the channels with pre-amp, and I dial up the Low and Medium equalizers to 75% of their gain while leaving the High Freq dial to zero. It’s doesn’t make for a Pure Acoustic Sound, but it is a very progressive sound that is attractive and not annoying. The important thing is that a violin not be annoying.

My Review of the NS Design WAV4 made me sort of famous, on a small scale. It was even picked up and posted on some Blog somewhere. So people started asking me how the NS Design compared to the Fender FV3.

Now, the FV3 has some splendid reviews online, albeit there are a few loud dissenters out there. Anyway, though a bit nervous about it, I ordered a Fender FV3.

Yes, the photos show it to be a lovely violin… perhaps the prettiest of all the electric violins on the market today. But those are just pictures. What I was afraid of was that in reality the actual look would be cheap, artificial and plastic. So I was quite relieved when the package came and I found that it was so very beautiful. The wood work looked like one of their premium signature guitars and it was bordered by this exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay. I had to catch my breath!

It transported me back in time to when I was a child… my mother inherited this antique coffee table. She summoned all the children together to lay down the new rules, which when taken altogether in sum meant that the beautiful coffee table was far more important than the transient goings on of mere children. After all, children would eventually grow up and leave home. But the beautiful coffee table was meant to stay… and to stay in its pristine condition of absolute perfection. In her ordinary life with so many ordinary things, the beautiful coffee table would be a central and special work of beauty… a piece of Heaven in the home place. And now, when I looked at my new FV3 Violin I saw something surely the equal of my mother’s precious coffee table. It was one of those eternal moments where the generations could come together, even beyond the grave, and find understanding. But, yes, the FV3 does look a bit like a coffee table… but a very beautiful coffee table.

Oh, and the Fender FV3 case was a hard case, of top quality, with even one of those humidity meter devices built into it… whatever they’re good for. And there was a bow. Not the best bow in the World. A few cranks on the bob to tighten it up a bit showed that it was going to curve a little to the right. But, who can’t use a spare bow from time to time… even one that wants to point east. But it’s much better than no bow at all, which is what NS Design offered for roughly the same price. Oh, and the NS Design case was little more than a cloth bag, with no place to put that Shoulder Rest contraption, unless you wanted to take the whole thing entirely apart… which, really, you don’t want to do. Practicing Violin should not be as difficult as assembling a hang glider. So I was putting the NS Design WAV4 in my sock drawer, shoulder rest still attached, and tossed the useless case up into the closet.

Oh, what was I to do with two electric violins? Well, first, I was going to have something of a ‘First Chair Shoot Out’… a competition. The Winner was to be my Violin, and the loser was to become an Electric Viola… throwing out the little E String and moving the G D and A strings down, with a new C string taking the low string position, that is, tuned to CGDA instead of GDAE.

Before I could start the competition, I made a new ‘Dog Collar’ for the FV3. Remember, one of the biggest complaints about the FV3 online was that it was heavy and would slip out of control. People needed to quit playing so they could put the violin back in position. The Dog Collar held the slightly lighter NS Design WAV4 in place and so it would also hold the Fender FV3 in place.

Then I started tuning up. I was startled to find that the G String was not even a real G String… I think it was another D String. It was simply too flabby at G. Anyway, the first rule for any ‘affordable’ violin that is not specifically set up by the Store’s Shop with specified quality strings, is to re-string it. Don’t keep a string unless you know what it is. I had re-strung the NS Design, though it was not nearly so bad. For the NS Design I had used Thomastik Superflexibles – steel braid in chrome-steel wrapping (reported to be the mellowest and least shrill of all the steel strings… and I am simply too rough on aluminum synthetic core strings to ever use them… so the best steel strings will have to be good enough for me). And the Superflexibles are great strings, though I found that it might take a day for the G string to mellow out to the same tone as the rest. For the FV3, The American Music Store gave me a set of Rotosound RS6000, steel core chrome-wounds, and I promised to try them out. They took about hour before they stabilized into tune… kind of longish for a steel string, but they ended up sounding perfectly lovely.

But here the Fender FV3 again surprised me. It was not staying in tune. One could see the pegs unwinding themselves like some ghost from the great beyong. The pegs were slipping. Well, it is a good thing I have something of a workshop. I removed the pegs and spun them in some medium grade sandpaper, about 220 grain. After that the pegs held solid… almost too solid. That reminds me to get some of that ‘peg stuff’ for sticky pegs. Anyway, with the pretty gold fine tuners mounted on the regular violin tailpiece of the FV3, the pegs only needed to get within a few notes of tune, and then the fine tuners could handle the rest.

Oh, and the finger board was a bit rough. I like my violin finger boards to be smooth as silk, and so I took some fine grade sandpaper and smoothed it down a bit. I had had to do the same for the NS Design. Also, I’ve found that most student violins can use a bit of sanding. You see, I use a bit of olive oil on my fingertips to help with my string slide action and have noticed that a lot of new violins will turn my fingers black. So, I guess that much of the perceived roughness on these new violin fingers boards may just be from the black stain finish they use. You see, liquid stain raises the grain of the wood. After any moist staining, every fine wood surface needs a final very fine grade sanding to re-smooth everything down. But one can’t expect such attention from these budget factory shops in China (although it only takes a minute) and so one has to do these little things for one’s self.

Oh, before we get to the actual playing, we need to remember that the FV3 too, also comes with its own special shoulder rest. You see the FV3 is smooth all around and doesn’t have the characteristic edge going all around which the typical violin shoulder rests are made to clip onto. The way the FV3 shoulder rest works is that it uses little male plugs that insert into little female jacks. The plugs are attached to little fittings made of spring steel which can be slightly bent so that when inserted into place a certain amount of spring preloading will keep the shoulder rest from simply dropping off. There is no clunk or indent or stop to hold it in place. The advantage is that it is very easy to remove when one is finished one’s practice. The disadvantage is that it will sometimes just simply fall off. Putting a good deal of bend into the spring fittings and even bending the shoulder rest itself to increase the tension of the spring preloading can minimize the problem. However, with my ‘Dog Collar’ holding the violin in position snug to my throat, the shoulder rest is also effectively secured. I didn’t have a problem, but if played like a regular violin – up and down up and down – I could see there being a problem with the shoulder rest occasionally hooking onto some article of clothing or whatever and being pulled off to drop on the floor or stage.

Anyway, finally to the actual playing. I was afraid I would need half the evening to find acceptable digital effects and equalization settings for the Fender FV3, just as it had taken a while to find settings that flattered the NS Design. But no, it was largely as easy as plug and play, that is, the settings that suited the NS Design WAV4 were equally flattering to the FV3. Yes, the low strings of the FV3 sounded a bit buzzy at first, but when I plugged in the NS Design WAV4 to hear a comparison, it was roughly the same thing, and after a few dial tweaks to the Peavey 6 and the Alesis Nanoverb all of the harshness was smoothed out. I had at first put a piece of old innertube over the bridge of the NS Design WAV4 to help cut the buzziness on the low strings, but found that a bit more patience with the electronic settings makes such mechanical interventions largely unnecessary.

It seems that the FV3 had an overall stronger gain coming from its sub-bridge pickup. Playability was good on the FV3 and I could instantly get nice action on the strings. With the NS Design WAV4 I had to use the screwdriver adjust to raise up the Bridge a bit because the strings were too close to the fingerboard, leaving next to no wiggle room for finger modulations. Now on a regular violin, so light and flexible, one can modulate the tone even by flexing the violin’s neck and body. But the NS Design is really something of a solid block of wood. No give at all. For any modulation to be possible at all one has to raise the bridge to allow for finger modulation and one has to really learn how to roll those fingertips. The Fender FV3, while not being quite as flexible as a good shop made acoustic, has some flex to it and one feels a bit more in control of the playing. The angle of the fingerboard must also be good as I noticed that the string tones stay good even when going very far down the neck, where with the NS Design, too far down the neck hits a dead zone where the strings muffle out and die… again, I suspect the bridge is too low. You know, one can only raise the bridge so far before one worries that one will simply break something off. The workmanship of the NS Design, while rugged enough in a back-woods rural Chinese factory kind of way, leaves one with the impression that one can only go so far screwing around with a simple block of wood before something snaps off. The bridge adjusted using these big coarse threaded wood screws… not adjustment screws, but the kind of screws you would use to hang a heavy picture frame into a support beam at the local tavern. I could screw them in to raise the bridge, but if I changed my mind and wanted to back out, it would probably have left everything loose and wobbly. It seems you might only have one chance to get it right. So when it seemed good enough, I stopped there. The Fender doesn’t have an adjustment, or none that I needed to look for, but fortunately no adjustment was necessary… the geometry, as factory set, is perfect.

The sound and playability of the Fender FV3 was better than the NS Design WAV4, but not by much. The Fender FV3 did have some particularities, which may account for the most horrible review I read concerning the FV3 – that it sounded terrible. You see, if the bridge piece of the FV3 wanders off too far to the side or leans a bit too forward or too backward, even by a little, then the pickup gain will drop to almost nothing. Unless you already have all your settings adjusted for a good normal gain, you will not know that something is wrong if the bridge had slipped into its dead-zone and you will simply assume that the FV3 is always like that … that it ‘sucks’. So, you need to be careful when stringing and tuning the FV3… tighten down to snug both a left and right string together at the same time to keep the bridge piece perfectly centered down the middle, and then double check that the bridge is perfectly straight up, forward and backward, after tuning. Oh, if you get a soft lead Carpenters Pencil which use a lot of graphite in the pencil lead, a good dry lubricant, then even with the strings fully tight in tune, one can still adjust the bridge’s verticality, slipping the bridge forward and aft under the strings. Even then, sometimes the sound connection between the bridge piece and the sub-bridge pickup will seem to ‘fall asleep’ between sessions… when the violin has been set aside for awhile. It seems that just trying to wiggle the verticality or flicking the bridge with finger kick is enough to ‘wake it up’… to bring it back to full gain again. Yes, the NS Design was never so fussy, but when the FV3 is working right, it works better.

And then there are the stunning good looks… of the Fender FV3. If the FV3 is an easy Nine on the famous 1 to 10 scale, then the NS Design WAV4 needs charity just to stretch it to a Six.

The NS Design also has the “what is it?” problem. It doesn’t look like a violin. It takes ordinary people a long time to figure out what it is supposed to be. And it seems small. Even experienced Violin players wonder whether it is the right size. Every violin player I know looks around the room for a violin to compare it to… thinking that the nut to bridge length must be shorter than ordinary… as though it is a children’s Electric Violin, size ½ or ¾.

So the First Chair Shootout went to the FV3. As I had said, the Loser would become a Viola, and this is where I found a problem with the NS Design I had not expected. You see, the strings go onto the NS Design somewhat backwards. The Ball End of the strings are up at the top of the neck. Now, this NS Design way of stringing had seemed so innovative – new strings are simply pushed into a slot and pinched down and tuned up. Easy as pie! But just try de-stringing! It turns out that out of 4 strings, 3 string balls were jammed solid into the little hole sockets… the varnish on the side of the sockets acting like a kind of glue. I had to get a paring knife from the kitchen and literally dig the old strings out. So why does there have to be a indented socket for the balls to get stuck in… would it have been some sacrilege against fine German Engineering for the balls to stick out somewhat from a metal fixture flush to the neck’s head? Anyway, when I re-strung the NS Design WAV4 to Viola Tune (C G D A instead of Violin G D A E) I made sure to tie a little string in front of each ball end, so that when the time came to restring, the balls could simply be pulled out… without resort to kitchen utensils.

Oh, some may wonder where I got a C String to fit a violin. Well, since NS Design builds 5 string violins, the 5th string being a C, I simply ordered one of them from Johnson Strings. Next time I might try a Jaguar Chrome String for 15 inch Viola which may be a fit more snuggly, but the NS Design C String works well enough to prove the principle… that an Electric Violin can be tuned to Viola.

This is how good the NS Design WAV4 actually is, despite loosing its competition. Even with a new Violin to play with… one I liked better… the Fender FV3… I ended up playing the NS Design WAV4, now an Electric Viola, for more than an hour. It was just so much fun! I couldn’t put it down. You know, I think it is something of a trend in the Music World… for instance, people ‘Bull Dogging’ old 4 string basses, that is, getting old traditional basses tuned to E A D G and then tossing out the light end G string and move all the other strings down one and putting in a heavier B string from a 5 string set at the low end, for a tuning of B E A D. Tuning a Violin to Viola is like ‘Bulldogging’ a violin… more rough and tumble bass at one end and less of those wussy shrill high notes at the other.

Anyway, the Viola tuning was so much fun in the NS Design WAV4 that I decided to ‘Bulldog’ the Fender FV3 too (luckily I had ordered two C Strings from Johnson Strings). And I played another six hours… forgetting about dinner… just to prove to myself that the E string was entirely unnecessary. Yes, a few times I went pretty far down the neck on the A string, but not once did I try for a high note I couldn’t reach. You know, I think the E String is a problem on Violins. The E String is there and one feels that one needs to use it, and so one contrives for reasons… thinking up musical phrases that pierce the sky and make dogs howl. But, really, all the Feeling and Intent of music can better be served without going to such extremes. Yes, yes, in orchestras the E Strings can set up high harmonic lilts that compliment the other instruments that for the most part do a good job of drowning out the E String’s inherent shrillness. But when the Violin is a stand alone instrument or a lead instrument, then that E String can simply be too much, particularly when it keeps one from sliding the other more pleasant strings down and putting in a much more useful C string on the other end.

So the Fender FV3 won and the NS Design WAV4 lost, but, remember, not by much.

Oh, but do keep in mind that the sound I was getting from these two splendid Electric Violins were a final product of the Alesis Nanoverb Effects Processor (set to Non Linear Chorus) and the Peavey 6 Mixer. My guess is that running either of these violins into a simple unfiltered amplifier would result in the most horrendous of infernal noises. The Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor is less than $150, as is also the Peavey Mixer. And I use the same equipment with my guitar and bass. Anyway, when budgeting for an Electric Violin, keep in mind that Effects and Equilization will necessarily be part of your package. Oh, and go to Johnson Strings and look into a half decent bow. I got a Jonpaul Bravo for about $250 and it really does make a difference… expressive down to slightest whisper or up to the most desperate howl. If you need to save money, then don’t eat lunch for a month, but buy a good bow…

..... Update, after a weeks playing.

It turns out that the most elegant solution to the Shoulder Rest Problem, of it inadvertently falling off, is just to let it lay... or to pick it up and put it back in the case and forget about it. If you use a 'dog collar' (or Violin Choker, as some prefer to call it) to support the violin just under your chin, while the violin may seem a bit wobbly at first, you will find that even without a shoulder rest it is quite under control, and without the shoulder rest, it may even help on occasions where you wish to roll the violin in to make the low strings more available to the bow. So if you tie the violin around your neck, you don't need a shoulder rest.

I was a bit worried about the 'sleeping pickup'. Over the week I had absolutely no problem at all... as long as I made only minor tuning changes. But when I decided to run out the Fine Tuners and re-snug up the Peg Tuners, then the Pickup came up 'sleeping' and I had to give the Bridge a little finger kick to wake it up. I wondered what was happening and decided to take off the Mother of Pearl access panel cover on the back and take a look. It turns out that the coax wire to the pickup goes up through the top, so the Pickup is actually just up on top under the bridge, secured by tape. Anyway, center the bridge exactly over that taped up pickup and you should be fine. When in doubt, just flick it a few times or thump down on the bridge. Really, when its working, it give a really full great gain.

Oh, after a full week ... and getting used to the transtion from violin to viola ( tuning from GDAE to CGDA) I really am confirmed in my love for the Fender FV3. There are more expensive violins out on the market, but they aren't nearly as good looking, and I can only wonder how they could possibly sound any better...

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Update after 3 weeks:

Oh, I remembered one problem I had been having with the NS Design WAV4, that bringing the bow down on the strings would create a low bass tone ‘RUMMFF’ sound, and especially if you wanted to do a ‘tremolo’ – short quick bow strokes, or any kind of bow bouncing around action. It was very distracting and annoying. I just got into the habit of not doing anything fancy with the bow while working with the NS Design WAV4. I inadvertently took the same habit to the Fender FV3.

But suddenly I noticed that the Fender FV3 was entirely immune to the problem… probably because the Pickup is ‘floating’… just sitting there in between the bridge home pocket and the bridge. I’m not certain, but perhaps the pickup of the NS Design is structurally fixed to the violins rather solid body, and every little secondary vibration comes through loud and clear, whether it is desired or not.

Oh, I am beginning to think that the ‘Pickup Falling Asleep’ problem with the Fender FV3 is only temporary… that once the Pickup Package ages and settles in, it begins to be quite consistently good. Anyway, I have not had a problem with it this last week… and I play every day.

I’ve heard that NS Design is coming out with an entire Violin Support System… a yoke that holds the violin in front and which balances it around one’s back with support beams and counter weights. It all looks like it could all rather get in the way. As I mentioned before, the “Heavy Violin Support Problem” can be solved in a half an hour with several key ring circles and clips and a short length of cotton laundry line rope and medium heavy cotton string. I had been calling it a “Dog Collar”, because that is what it reminded me of, but the Lady in the local Musical Instrument Store prevailed upon me to start calling it a “Violin Choker”. You simply make a few loops of string around the violin tail piece loop, and use that string loop to secure a short length of cotton rope with key ring rings secured to the ends. The rope only has to be long enough so that the clip fasteners will attach around the side of your neck rather than just under the throat, which would probably be quite annoying… and, place the rings far enough back so that the clips do not line up with that artery which carries blood up into the brain. One can fit out the ‘Violin Choker’, patent pending, making loops with the rope secured by temporary knots of string, and then sliding the rope loops tighter or slacker until it is all quite the perfect size for you, and then finish the job by using multiple string windings on the ends of the rope loops. If done carefully, the job can even be fairly presentable. And as I have said before, this simple contraption provides an elegant and comprehensive solution to the whole Violin Stability problem. One doesn’t even have to use the Chin Rest anymore, and I have found that I no longer need the Fender Shoulder Rest, though I’ve kept my real Violin’s shoulder rest… out of concern for its very expensive finish, which isn’t an issue for the Fender. The advantage the Violin Choker would have over the NS Design Support System Yoke, is, well, its not so obtrusive. Between songs, one can simply let the violin hang down on one’s chest. One can have a drink of beer, and rosin one’s bow… even go out into the kitchen and make a sandwich. But the NS Design thing looks like it would only be useful only during playing, but otherwise would be entirely in the way of everything one would like to do between songs.

Fender FV3 Electric Violin One Month Update

I had bumped the FV3 while playing and the D string unwound itself out of tune. Then the peg wouldn’t hold tune upon retuning but would slip almost immediately. The FV3 must be made of a relatively hard wood which compresses the softer pegs to a bright slippery shine, and then the only thing to do is to unstring the violin and give the pegs a medium to light sandpapering, to rough them up enough so that they will again stay put and hold tune. Oh, remember to turn the pegs in the sandpaper evenly in order to keep them uniformly round and in about the same shape as they should be. Anyway, that wasn’t such a big problem. The big problem came when the FV3 Electric Violin came up completely dead after restringing. Not just low gain, but absolutely nothing. But then when I moved the bridge back and forth on its front to back angle, suddenly the piezo pickup snapped on loud and clear. But something was clearly wrong. A wire was severed or a solder joint was cracked or the piezo-elements were shorting together, but something was clearly wrong and it probably would not fix itself… as I had been hoping.

Coming up on 30 days from purchase I decided to inquire at the local Fender Store about my options. They emailed Fender and Fender came back with the reply that they would FEDEX out a complete Electronics Kit for the FV3 – not just the piezoelectric pickup but also the jack connector and control potentiometers. The local electric guitar smith would install the electronics kit and Fender would be billed for his trouble.

After all of this transpires I will get back and report whether the new set of electronics fixes the problems I have had with the FV3 being glitchy and temperamental. Oh, and I am so happy I did not give the FV3 a 5 Star Rating. One should not give an item 5 stars just because the Company provides great warranty support for when the thing craps out almost immediately… Anyway, keep in mind that the FV3 is still a rather nice violin for just $700, and for that price one might expect to run into some difficulties. This reminds me… I had sent off for a NS Design CR4 Viola, having liked the FV3 when I strung it to viola tuning. Now THAT is a great instrument… the active electronics can be set to a nice MELLOW, and it stays in tune from session to session, and though its shaped quite the same as the WAV Series, its final finish is SO much better, and the thing even seems to have some flex and feel… as though they had done a bit of a better job shaping the basic block of wood out of which it is hewn. But the NS Design CR Violins and Violas come in at a good deal more than $2000 (that is, more than 3 times what one would pay for the WAV or the FV3) where if one did not receive some fairly obvious quality, then accusations of robbery and reactions like rioting would not be quite too far out of line even for the most civilized and polite among us. But yes, the NS Design CR4 Viola is splendid and I love it… even while I might have to skip lunches for the next six months in order to pay for it…

...........Back From Repair with new electronics

Now the pickup isn't intermittent, and no longer just dies until I bring it back to life by wiggling the bridge. but I had gotten a NS Design CR4, which sounds so much better than both the WAV and the FV3, that it was a bit demoralizing trying to dial in a good sound for the FV3... and I tried for almost an hour. An edge of electric harshness can never entirely be eliminated... not without also killing the response on the high strings.

Then, I was spoiled by the NS Design String and Tune system. Changing out strings takes only a few minutes with the NS Design, and then, if you use steel strings, the violin stays in tune... solid, in tune, practice after practice. With peg tuning in general, maybe there is peg slippage, or the string coiled on the pegs pulls out or squeezes down, but, in any case, peg tuning doesn't stay put. In the case of the FV3, I think the hard wood used for neck and head, which holds the pegs, well, I think the wood is not any real kind of violin wood. The hard wood compresses in on the pegs and makes them smooth -- shiney smooth, and the pegs begin to unwind. It happened to me three times, and I owned the FV3 less than 2 months. One has to unstring the violin and then use sand paper to rough up the pegs... but it apparently just a temporary fix. Maybe one needs to put honey or a light glue on the pegs, and then tune them close enough so that the fine tuners, which don't seem to have the same range as ordinary violin fine tuners, can take over. But, as time went on, I found the FV3 tuning instability and chronic string problems to be very annoying.

The WAV sounded only a bit inferior to the FV3, but now that I have had to live with the FV3 for almost two full months, with all of its quirks and repairs, I certainly would now give the Win to the WAV. Ease of operation and reliability have to count for something, and it sounds 98% as good, when the FV3 decides to work right.

But if you find that you can afford to spend a lot more money, the NS Design CR4 Series does dial in to a very good sound, and has a much lovier physical presence... the WAV series looks like the CR Series in shape, but that is as far as it goes. The Finish of the CR4 is far superior and almost worth the added cost in itself.

Its a shame that a reputable company like Fender doesn't even offer a premium class Electrical Violin. Considering the fit and finish in their $1000 Guitars, if all they had to do was compete with NS Design's $2000+ Price Point, then one could expect Fender to be able to turn out THE BEST ELECTRIC VIOLIN IN THE WORLD for roughly $1800. They could call it the 'Arrowcaster' (you know like 'bow' and arrow... and the name would be reminiscent of their famous series of 'Telecasters' and 'Stratocasters').